


go to hell? (buddy, i've been there)

by NotSummer



Series: Yelenti Mercenary Band [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Battle Couple, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Non-Canonical Character Death, Rannoch, The Morning War, War is hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:06:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9428909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSummer/pseuds/NotSummer
Summary: 1895 CE: An Asari Mercenary and her team are dispatched to Rannoch to see if the rumors about Quarian-built AI are true.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First in a series of drabbles surrounding the Yelenti Mercenary Band. Each drabble will represent each new member of the band, moving all the way up to the Relay 314 Incident and the Reaper War. Each should be pretty self-contained.

Mass accelerator rounds peppered the Asari Commando as she ducked behind a doorway. Rannoch’s sun glimmered angrily in the morning’s light, and N’iala shouted, “It look like the Council’s suspicions about the Quarians were correct!” The three geth advancing on the asari let out shrieking synthetic chirps, and N’iala threw a barrier over the doorway, absorbing the next salvo.

A krogan bellow answered, with the thudding of massive footsteps and the crunch of a claw hammer, and the accelerator rounds ceased. Weyrloc Yvar’s brows lowered in irritation as she muscled her way through the now open doorway. “You’d think the AI would at least make good opponents.” She hauled the hammer out, tossing the geth’s platform out of her way with a Biotic throw. “I’m not impressed.”

“You wouldn’t be impressed by  _ Kalros _ , Yvar. Let’s get these civilians to the evacuation points.” N’iala rolled her eyes at her lover, opening her omni tool, which screeched at her and shut down.

“They’re in the system. Loose the ‘tools, Yvar.”

“No map, no asari with  _ any  _ sense of direction-”

“-an illiterate krogan,” N’iala finished, throwing a smirk at the hulking woman blocking the doorway.

“You can’t read Quarian either, Ni,” Yvar grumbled, eying the empty streets. “It’s clear for now, but the…” the krogan narrowed her eyes and swung her head towards the homeowners. “Our enemy must have a name. What is it?”

“Geth,” the woman spat, her bio-luminescent eyes narrowed in anger. It means ‘servant of the people’. And this is how they serve us!” Her trilling voice turned shrill. Yvar scowled and shook her head, her black plates dully reflecting the sun as she holstered the claw hammer she preferred.

“It’s not logical,” Yvar muttered, and seeing N’iala’s grin, hastily added,  “And I’m not talking krogan standards of logic, Ni, so shut your damned pyjak mouth.” The krogan bent down to the Quarian and added, “We’ll get you out. I’m damned good at drawing fire, so you stick with N’iala. I'll charge ahead, distract whatever geth are around from other survivors. Grab what food and belongings you can carry.” When the Quarians didn’t move, Yvar huffed, and bellowed, “Now!”

They watched the parents and their three children scramble away and start grabbing things, and N’iala slipped closer to her lover. “What do you think is going to happen to the Quarians? I mean, AI? Revolting? This is pretty….”

“Messy? The Council won’t help them. The council would rather secure it’s own power than help others. A pretty krogan attitude for a bunch of aliens that hate krogan, if you ask me.”

N’iala frowned. “It sound like you think the Council would give up on the Quarians. The Quarians are a Council race; they keep almost all our ships and engineering projects running. The Council wouldn’t do that.”

“And the Krogan kept your armies running. Until the Rebellions, and the council castrated us all. The Council isn’t as pure and good as you Asari like to believe.”

“I know,” N’iala grumbled, “You’ve told me a million times. And I feel for the krogan, I do, but the Quarians? They're harmless.”

“But the geth aren’t,” Yvar rumbled, turning her focus to the approaching family, “You pyjaks ready to head out?”

“What about our home?” A tiny little girl peeked out from behind her father’s legs, and the Krogan crouched low, gesturing for N’iala to keep a watch on the streets. The Asari summoned a barrier over the doorway, as she stood with her sniper rifle ready.

“Rannoch will survive, and you will see it again, should the Council provide aid. Your people made a mistake, but they did so with honor, and not out of rage or bloodlust or vengeance or bitterness. Now, we give the geth the greatest insult we can. We ignore them, and  _ survive _ .”

The krogan held out her hand to the child, and when the tiny little Quarian placed her hand in the krogan's, Yvar grasped it and shook it. “A warrior's handshake. What it’s your name, little one?”

Glowing eyes blinked slowly, and she whispered, “Alya’Dareh”

The krogan rose back up, and rumbled, “Well, then, Alya, let’s get you to safety.” Turning, she headed out the door after N’iala dropped the barrier, and loped down the street, shouting out challenges to any geth within range. N’iala pulled a barrier up around her and the family, and they hurried down the street, stopping behind cover to let N’iala drop the barrier and rest for a moment or two.

They were half a kilometer away from the spaceport when they faced the first wave of geth. N’iala shoved the Dareh family down, growling a quick, “Keep your heads down and don’t make a sound.” before using a biotic push to throw Yvar.

Yvar smashed into the squad of geth, swinging the claw hammer around as the asari and the krogan attacked from behind. They let out panicked chirps as a quarter ton of enraged biotic krogan slammed into them.  _ Well _ , N’iala reflected,  _ no one would blame them for panicking _ .

Yvar twirled, the law hammer catching a geth’s neck and twisting it as she hurled it’s inert platform towards another. A few Reaves from N’iala and three more smaller platforms lay spasming on the ground as well. A few well placed shots to the main servos, and the geth were silenced for good.

N’iala hurried back to the small family, left huddled by a shot out lamppost. “C’mon. The geth will know where we are now.” Throwing the barrier back over the group, N’iala wiped a hand over her eyes, smearing dirt over her green tattoos but away from her eyes.

“This is a mess,” N’iala huffed, holding the barrier up as they hurried past a silent intersection. Yvar scuttled forward, kicking at a bush, but only a t’chari fell out, it’s six legs all over the place as the tiny creature hurtled away from the krogan, chirping fearfully. Eventually the krogan replied, “It seems most of the civilians got out. We were away from the fighting, anyway. Pah. A true krogan would have found where the battle was hardest.”

“Yeah, but you said the krogan needed to find something to fight for.”

“And I would have fought to hold the geth back from civilians. No blood perhaps, but a good fight.”

Niala rolled her eyes, but as the group turned the corner, she scrambled backwards. “That’s a big one! When did they get that big?” She shoved the family back, sending them skidding across the ground with her biotics as a plant next to her head exploded. “Fuck!”

A synthetic roar was answered with a krogan bellow, and N’iala sighed. “Oh, there’s the blood rage. Thanks, Yvar, real help.” She poked her head out of the cover, and sighting the geth’s head, a blast from her sniper rifle sent the gargantuan platform toppling over.

Yvar raced forward, accelerator rounds slamming into her barriers as she charged the remaining three geth. Incandescent with rage, the krogan forewent hammers or rifles to rip the geth limb from limb.

A lone foot skidded by N’iala’s hiding place, and she pushed Alya back as the child tried to edge forward to get a closer view. Only a few hundred yards from the spaceport, N’iala looked back out, and seeing no geth, threw the barrier back over the family, and urged them to run. Her own long strides were no match for the quarians’ bouncing lope, and she grimaced as they slowed down to match her own pace.

A few yards away from the door, a high powered shot shredded her barrier around the family.

N’iala shouted for them to run as the world seemed to freeze around her. Yvar roared behind her. Three geth squads gleamed in the sunlight. A bush waved in the wind.

Another shot. A yard away from the door, one of the children fell.

The world turned blue. Yvar threw herself in front of the family, trusting in krogan regeneration and barriers to keep herself safe.

N’iala floated forward, biotics amplified as the screamed in vengeful grief. Shockwaves shattered chassis, singularities detonated by Yvar dropped squads. The geth kept coming. N’iala kept raging. Purple blood dripped from her nose and stained the Rannoch pavement.

A geth popped out of cover, a slam throws it back into cover, although too crushed to make any use of it. Yvar made note of a geth squad trying to flank her lover, but no sooner did she notice them than a singularity hauled them off the ground. Yvar finished them with her assault rifle as N’iala finally drops to the ground.

“We were a yard away.” The asari stumbled, blood leaking out of her nose at an alarming rate, and her amp was scalding to the touch. Yvar threw her over her shoulders, and hurried into the spaceport, silent and free of geth. The family scrambled behind them, the injured child in her father’s arms.

“Kill whoever remains, but not guarding the spaceport? They want us gone.” Yvar gestured, as N’iala finally slipped into unconsciousness, herding the family towards her docking bay.

The VI took control as Yvar shouted for the ship to take off and make for the Quarian fleets. Yvar hurtled up the ramps to the second level of the freighter where the med-bay waited. Placing N’iala on one of the beds to sleep off her overuse of biotics, Yvar turned back to the Quarians.

Looming over the other bed, Yvar’s hearts sank as she realized it was little Alya that got hit. The mas accelerator round had punched through her lower torso, leaving a mess of gore and blood. A fatal wound on a being that small.

“Ancestors guide you, little Alya.” The krogan ran her claws over the little girl’s head in an attempt to soothe.

“I wanted to be a warrior,” the little girl replied, undimmed ferocity in her eyes.

“You are a warrior. The bravest. Were you a krogan, we would declare you warlord.” Yvar’s voice grew hoarse. That the geth would harm a child… It was unthinkable. For all their savagery, no krogan would harm a child.

Yvar injected painkillers, and slipped back into the shadows by N’iala’s bed, letting the family have their last moments.

Yvar closed her eyes, letting the gentle humming of the ship soothe her as she tried not to listen to the family's pain.

Well. It was rather hard not to listen.

Twenty minutes passed. Thirty. Forty.

A shuddering sob marked Alya’s final breath, and the krogan grimaced as the family began to cry in earnest.

The VI’s cold, emotionless voice broke through, “ETA to Quarian ships is 10 minutes.” Yvar, who thought the VI was irritating already, felt a surge of hatred. The geth were VIs once. The geth were now monsters,  _ murderers _ . What would drive them to commit such horrific acts?

Yvar didn’t care, and as the freighter docked, and the family rejoined their hurting people. Alya’s corpse held a place of honor among countless other bodies, large and small. It was easy for Yvar to decide she  _ loathed _ the geth.

Slipping back into the  _ Aleva'nar _ after plotting a course for the Citadel, she resumed her silent watch over her lover. Change was in the air, and Yvar hoped the two of them received favorable winds.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism welcomed. I do treasure each and every kudos out there.
> 
> Up next: Tavi K'ai, an Ardat Yakshi who's managed to avoid notice by the Justicars.


End file.
